1.2.1 Hearthstones
A hearthstone is a special stone located in your inventory. By clicking it, you return to
the inn to which you are bound. Hearthstones regenerate each hour, this regeneration is
know as “cool down” and refers to the time it takes to become available again. To bind
to a new location, enter an inn and talk to an innkeeper. That innkeeper can then bind
you to that location, allowing you to hearth there. Bear in mind though that you can only
be bound to one location at a time, so be sure to bind yourself to a new inn when you
enter a new area you intend to quest in for a while.
Hearthstones allow you to get out of many tedious situations such as a long walk or
when you’re stuck in a cave and want to turn in your quests. These are also handy for
casual gamers who just want to get back to town to quit their gaming session.
Hearthstones are also handy because they give you easy access to the rest system.
1.2.2 Resting
Resting in World of Warcraft can be best explained like this. As you are offline, you
accumulate rest. Rested player receive 200% experience from monster (not quests)
until they are no longer rested. Eight hours of logged off time at a city or inn equals one
bubble of rest. The rest maximum is 30 bubbles of experience or 1.5 levels (240 hours
of not playing the character, 10 days). If you intend to create a primary character, it can’t
hurt to have a secondary. Log in to the secondary character every ten days, gain a level
and a half of experience, and hearth back to the inn.
1.2.3 Combat
Combat in World of Warcraft is fairly simple. When you click an enemy, you can view
their type above the inventory bags. Yellow enemies will only attack you if you attack
them or open treasure chests near them, red enemies will attack you if you enter their
radius.
The radius of a red enemy depends on your level, the lower level you are, the higher
radius an enemy has. There are many types of red enemies as well, some will, when
reduced to low hitpoints, run and get their friends to attack you as well. Other will keep
on swinging or using special abilities.
To engage an enemy, hit the attack button on the action bar. You can also attack an
enemy by getting within range of a spell or special attack and using it on them. Be
aware that most enemies not in the newbie zone will attack in packs if you attack them
when they are too close to others of their kind.
Combat is straightforward; drain their hitpoints before they drain yours. Most classes
can “solo” (kill without being in a group) enemies one or two levels above them. When
you click on an enemy, its portrait will appear next to yours with a level number. If the
level number is grey, green, yellow, or orange, you should be able to attack it with little
problem. Grey enemies yield no experience, green ones give about 50-90% experience
(depending on level), and all others gi/ve 100%.
Beware of monsters marked “elite” these creatures need a group of at least three at
equal level to take down. Elite monsters tend to drop better equipment, but are harder to
take down.
There are also unique monsters which drop really good items scattered in rare places
around the world. These monsters always drop at least one good piece of equipment,
but these creatures only spawn once every eight to twenty-four hours. It should be
noted that almost any item these creatures drop can be found on any monster, but these
unique creatures always drop them.
There are two types of “realms” or servers, PvP and PvE. PvP servers are servers
where players of the alliance factions (Dwarf, Gnome, Human, Night Elf) can fight with
members of other factions in particular zones. In the case of PvE servers, players can
only fight with other players of other factions in arenas.
Dueling is an option which allows you to mock-fight with other players. Select another
player and right click their portrait when it appears next to yours, then select the duel
option. A battle flag should appear on the ground. If the other player agrees, you duke it
out. There is no death in dueling, the loser is just reduced to 1 hitpoint.
1.2.4 Death
When you die, you are brought back in ghost form. In ghost form you have three
choices, resurrect yourself at the spirit healer (angel-looking creature) at the graveyard,
get resurrected by another player, or walk back to your corpse.
If you chose to return to the living using the spirit healer, you items take a large durability
hit (25%) and you take a penalty to your statistics for a period of time. This is the best
option if you just don’t want to go back or have to quit the game very shortly.
If you get resurrected by another player, you incur a temporary statistical penalty and
have to stay out of the action for a bit of time. This is best if you are in an instance zone
and want to get right back to the action or if you are participating in a raid.
The third option and most common is simply to walk back. Walking in ghost form tends
to be quicker than walking in regular form and there is no penalty. Night Elf players in
particular should almost always chose to walk back. When a Night-Elf player dies, his
ghost form is a wisp. In wisp form, a Night Elf travels much faster than any other
character in ghost form.
When doing a “corpse run” check the map (“M”) to see where your corpse is, it will be
indicated with a little tomb stone.
1.2.5 Factions
There are two primary factions in the world of Warcraft, the Alliance and the Horde.
Alliance Horde
Dwarf
Gnome
Human
Night Elf
Orc
Tauren
Troll
Undead
If you intend to play on the same server as a friend, be sure you are of the same primary
faction as the other or you can’t play together, message each other, or even talk to one
another if face-to-face. Alliance players cannot be in the same guild, group, or raid party
as horde players as well.
1.2.6 Experience
Experience in World of Warcraft is the measure by which your character attains a new
level. Every time you kill an enemy whose level is close to yours, you gain experience.
Experience also comes in the form of quests or discovering new regions. Experience is
gauged above your action, menu, and inventory bars as twenty bubbles, as the bubbles
fill, you gain more experience. Rest is represented by a small bar on the bubble gauge.
When you reach that bar, you are no longer considered to be in a rested state and gain
experience at a normal pace. You can see your experience and experience needed to
attain a new level if you hover over the gauge.
When all twenty bubbles are completely filled, you attain a new level. As in other
games, levels allow you to equip better items and make you more powerful. When you
gain a new level, you should equip all items you’ve been saving for that level, invest your
new talent point (after level 10) and buy new spells if you hit an even-numbered level.
The best way to gauge how much you should spend on equipment and how much you
should spend on new spells is simple. You can usually save one level’s worth of
currency on items, and the other on new spells. There are exceptions which could vary
your results including play style. This general formula is a good rough guideline. The
only exception is the levels in intervals of ten (ie. Level 10, 20, 30, ect). These levels
contain spells you are really going to want to have, for most classes there will be a lot of
spells you’ll want at these levels. So you may need to save two levels worth of currency
before reaching that level.
So spend levels that end in 0, 2, 4, 6 on equipment or savings and the rest into skills.
Whatever you have left over from skills should be saved for a mount, but we’ll get into
that later.
1.2.7 Statistics
As you level up or gain new items, you can increase your statistics, here is what each
statistic does.
Agility
? Increases ranged damage
? Increases critical hit %
? Increase armor
? Increase melee damage for hunters and rogues.
? Increase Dodge (Higher dodge for rouges)
Intelligence
? Increase mana & health
? Increase spell critical hit %
? Weapons skills are easier to learn
Stamina
? Increase hitpoints
Strength
? Deal More Melee Damage
? Block more damage with a shield.
Spirit
? Increase mana regeneration
1.2.8 Quests
Quests tend to be the best way to gain levels early in the game. Not only do quests help
you to gain experience, but they also usually give a reward of gold or a really good item.
Until level forty, you should always be questing, no matter what. Once you hit the higher
levels (40+) you can generally pick and chose your quests depending on what the
reward is.
At the higher levels, quests tend to take much longer than they are worth. Where you
could gain two bubbles of experience doing a quest, you can usually gain three or four
grinding (just attacking monsters the right level) for experience. Higher-level quests can
get you some really great items, so never neglect to look at them, just be choosy.
The best quests tend to be those that take you into group “instance” zones. There t